'I'd recognise him anywhere'

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JOANNE Lees has angrily denied she has wrongly identified her
attacker as Broome mechanic Bradley John Murdoch, saying "I'd
recognise him anywhere."

"At the end of the day, I was there," Ms Lees told a Supreme
Court jury sitting in Darwin yesterday. "I know what happened."

As Ms Lees ended four days of testifying about her ordeal,
barrister Grant Algie, for Murdoch, suggested she had pointed out
the wrong man after seeing Murdoch's image on a BBC website in
2002.

"I don't have to read it in the press," Ms Lees said.

Ms Lees agreed with Mr Algie that she identified Murdoch after
being able to see him in court.

"I had the opportunity but I did not look at him," she said.

The Crown has alleged that Murdoch attacked 32-year-old Ms Lees
and murdered Mr Falconio on the Stuart Highway in the Northern
Territory on July 14, 2002. Murdoch, 47, has pleaded not guilty.
The body of Mr Falconio, 28, has never been found.

In court yesterday, Ms Lees was bound with a man's tie and asked
to sit on the floor three metres from Murdoch, who was sitting in
the dock flanked by two guards. Wearing a singlet top and tracksuit
pants, Ms Lees, showing no emotion, demonstrated how she slipped
her bound hands from behind her back to the front as she hid under
a bush after escaping from her attacker.

Ms Lees had earlier told the court she was threatened with a
gun, punched in the head and bound with her wrists behind her back
with handcuffs made from cable ties.

Justice Brian Martin said it took Ms Lees one to two seconds to
make the manoeuvre.

Ms Lees denied an encounter with Murdoch in Alice Springs on the
day Mr Falconio disappeared. She said that if Murdoch had been in
the vicinity of a Red Rooster store when she and Mr Falconio
visited, she would not have remembered. "No, why would I?" Ms Lees
said.

Mr Algie questioned Ms Lees about her and Mr Falconio's
movements before they left Alice Springs to drive 310 kilometres
north along the Stuart Highway where Murdoch allegedly flagged them
down. Ms Lees said she and Mr Falconio visited the Camel Cup and
she bought a ticket to Sydney.

Mr Algie asked: "When you were at Red Rooster or in the car park
at Red Rooster or anywhere near Red Rooster, do you have a
recollection of seeing Mr Murdoch?"

Ms Lees: No." Pressed further, Ms Lees said: "I don't recall
seeing him (Murdoch) and I don't recall the Red Rooster being busy,
I don't recall bumping into anybody or anyone even coming close to
me or speaking to me."

Ms Lees told the court she had cuts and bruises all over her
body after being attacked. But she said she did not want to discuss
what had happened to her with a doctor in Alice Springs who
examined her later. "I didn't really want to be telling anybody
other than the police.

"The bruises started showing up days later. At the time I wasn't
aware of them, it wasn't until people started pointing out my
bruises."

Vincent Millar testified that early in the morning after the
alleged attack he saw a woman he identified as Ms Lees jump out on
to the side of the bitumen as he was driving along the highway. Mr
Millar said he thought his truck had hit her.

But Mr Millar said as he was looking for "an arm, a leg, pieces
of body or clothing", he heard Ms Lees walking alongside the
driver's side. He said she was calling out "help, help" and threw
herself at him. He was taken aback. "You don't know what's going on
out there when you are on your own," he said.

He said Ms Lees was a little bit nervous. "There was disbelief
with the situation she was in at that stage," he said.

Mr Millar said he woke his co-driver, Rodney Adams. "I said 'Get
out here, we've got a bit of a scene. We've got a sheila out here
and she's all tied up, mate'," he said. He and Mr Adams cut cable
ties around Ms Lees' wrists.

"I asked questions like 'what happened?' She said a bloke pulled
them over, saying there were sparks out of the back of the car. She
said she didn't want to stop but Pete said it would be all right,
there's only one bloke and a dog," Mr Millar said.

He said after Ms Lees had got into the truck she said: "I'd like
to find my boyfriend and my car." Mr Millar said he agreed to "have
a little bit of a look around".

He said he noticed fresh tracks off the highway. "I said let's
go and have a look" but then Ms Lees told him her attacker had a
gun. He then drove out of the area and notified police.